• Migration and diversity
• Race and ethnic studies
• Urban studies and global cities

Laavanya Kathiravelu is Associate Professor of Sociology, and Associate Chair of Graduate and Continuing Education, School of Social Science, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Her research and teaching interests lie in the intersections between migration & citizenship, urban studies, and race and ethnicity. While focused empirically on Southeast Asia and the Persian Gulf, her work also speaks to broader epistemological and conceptual debates. She was Fung Global Fellow at Princeton University between 2015-2016 and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity (2011-2014). In 2022, Laavanya was a Fulbright Fellow at the City University of New York. She also sits on the Executive Boards of AWARE, an organisation advocating or gender equality, and HOME, a migrant rights and welfare charity.